tvashtarkatena

Well, I did post under my real name once. Nobody's perfect.

That's why I've never changed my anonymous avatar; I believe in openness.

Trump, Palin, Bachmann, Mitt OMFG. This is gonna be a turkey shoot. Where's that lyin' New Jersey phat phuck?

He's got the Gravitas.

What the fuck are you talking about? Nevermind, I don't care. The font matches his combover....

I do like that photo, though.

It's called consideration, although a realize that a fully actualized progressive is above all that...because WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY IS TOO IMPORTANT!

Fraud is fraud, regardless of how many schools CAI built. If the org solicited money to build schools and spent it on chartered flights to book signings instead, that's fraud, plain and simple. This kind of crap, and the cult-of-personality conceit behind it (Mortensen still insists that CAI wouldn't survive without him - although it seems like it would be better off without him at this point) makes people in general more wary - for some, this is a convenient excuse to stop giving. On the flip side, it makes some people more street smart in their giving - a good thing for more time tested, legitimate charities, considering the huge number of less scrupulous organizations out there that play this bait and switch game. Bible Thumperz have been playing this game forever, but it's played across the social spectrum - even though its often more incompetence than skulduggery at work. Hey, even Madonna's playing it. Urgent calls for money to meet some high stakes deadline, pictures of big eyed, pleading children, fervent pleas from failed TV actors, and, as in this case, wonderful, heartfelt stories that seem too good to be true (however unreadable they may be), should steer one's donations elsewhere. As for Mortensen himself, that 'travellers' scarf' alone is justification for a good ass kicking by some less-than-charitably minded construction workers.

Whatever happened to just posting a link? Try it sometime, folks. I don't know about anyone else, but posting the entire article in an attempt to 'force' people to read your pet tome may cause a lot of rapid scrolling. Reading? Not so much.

I couldn't make it past page 10 of his fawning, self aggrandizing feel good story. As of about six months ago, every online dating woman in America was apparently reading it, however...if the Twilight Series wasn't keeping them too busy, that is. Still, sounds like he's done some good, even if through some 'creative' means. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, probably.

As predicted: GOP ready to raise debt limit Basic negotiation dynamics in action.

I love the Mandaterz central idea: the kooks from my district voted my crazy ass in, so everybody in the country must feel the same way. Too bad their own party members don't even vote with them. Kind of a weak Mandate, that. What is strong is thare ability to stop up the congressional flow of normal work and raise a stink in the process. Thare basically the political equivalent of an impacted turd finally set free to go South.

It's new. It's brown. It's you.

Apparently not!

Who else have you brown carroted?

There's one good spot to cross at least, even if the river comes up a bit. It's a couple of hundred yards downstream from the big bend just downstream of Moonlight. Follow the rippled shallows diagonally across the river and you'll keep you sacks dry.

Without the chaos of Spray, there is only chaos

I instinctively trust any movement that categorizes folks as 'pinheads' and 'patriots'. Why wouldn't anyone?

It's both a joy and a weakness. I have little patience for people who can't get to the fucking point, I'll admit. STFU and say something, already.

"Tell me about the bunnies, George."

Neoclassical Economics in a nutsack. JayB has sophistry issues. He can't debate his way out of a nutsack, because he can't seem to remember what the topic of debate is. For example, here we've got an American budget balancing calculator, with all the proposals levied so far to to address the problem, that clearly illustrates the various options (and there are many) for getting rid of the deficit...and he hauls out a marginal European graph of herring catches per fortnight ratios. As if Europe was one country. And that country was us. Or something like that. Maybe. Include taxing the rich (duh) as part of the solution and he responds with a graph that shows that such taxation won't get rid of the entire deficit (um...OK...duh). It's like arguing with an 8 year old. It's really not his fault. He needs a Unified Theory of Economics with fewer than three parameters to avoid brain-stall.

That's because you didn't include WW2 in your data: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205 marginal rates (your site) http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php tax revenue as 20.9% of GDP in 1944, up from 13.3% of GDP in 1943. Marginal rate went from 88% to 94%. You'll also notice how far the top bracket fell in that time period as well. Similar occured earlier in the century when the top bracket went from 7% to 77% in 3 years I realize though that "facts" are uncomfortably at odds with your ideology. If the relationship between top marginal rates and revenues is a simple function of marginal rates and income thresholds then every cut in top marginal rates should result in a proportionate reduction in tax revenues, and should never lead to an increase - right? There's a reason that the Euro's like broad consumption taxes in addition to high marginal rates, because they figured out that there's not enough aggregated income in whatever income threshold they deem wealthy to cover the bills. You're actually quite thick when you get right down to it. ADHD? I don't know...who cares (other than Billcoe)? In any case, 10 minutes on the NYT budget balancer immediately reveals that all the doomsday talk about the necessity of 'overhauling entitlements' is, as we would expect, utter bullshit. It's the umpteenth round of the Right's ideological agenda, slightly rebranded for an even dumber America. Rub your knob all you want about European marginal tax rates and marginal/GDP ratios with all the 'outlier' data removed, but the numbers for OUR budget and its competing fix-it proposals speak pretty clearly for themselves. Ah, when politics dresses up like science. Ah sho loves me some BULLSHIT!

Throwing up one's hands and claiming 'it's too complex' is a great strategy for 'trusting the experts'. The 'experts', in this case legislators, are no smarter or more experienced (and the newbies often less) than anyone else. It isn't 'that simple'...it also isn't 'that hard' either. Work from your basic principles: social justice, for example, and the path usually flows pretty readily from there. As the NYT budget tool shows, it really isn't all that hard, although it is, of course, very political.

Or increase marginal rates on the wealthy and eliminate loopholes. Uh-huh.

With any of these policy proposals, you want to avoid a) firing people and b) driving at-risk people below the poverty line. Even if you're a sociopath who doesn't give a shit about these folks, they only strain social and law enforcement services more as a result - which makes the budget problem even worse. Taxing the wealthiest, of course, minimizes these problems. It represents a minor hit to people and businesses that can easily afford it.